The knock on many of the new developments being built in DC these days is that they consist almost entirely of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.

Eric Fidler recently wrote a post on Greater Greater Washington that outlines a proposal which aims to change that. In short, the Office of Planning, at the behest of ANC 6D, recently submitted a proposal for a section of Navy Yard that would incentivize the construction of three-bedroom apartments:

The proposal would let developers make buildings taller and with a higher Floor Area Ratio (FAR) as long as that 8% of the “bonus” area were three-bedroom units. Awarding bonus density can make a project more profitable because the developer gets more space to eventually lease or sell.

UrbanTurf wrote an article last year on why larger residential units were not being built in new developments. The conclusion? There just isn’t the demand.

“For really large condos, that market is not that deep and the locations for that product have to be very special, very selected,” Monty Hoffman, the head of Wharf developer PN Hoffman, told UrbanTurf. “It makes for good dinner conversation, but from a business perspective it may not be quite as deep as some people think.”

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This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_three-bedroom_incentive/9625

1 Comment

Jen Angotti said at 4:58 pm on Tuesday March 10, 2015:

YEA! I always have a few clients looking for 3 bedroom condos. They’re difficult to find. I think it’s a misconception that buyers don’t want them. They do and they’d like them for 700-900K, please not 1.5 million. That seems doable, right?